New ways to prevent or slow aging AND prevent diseases....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 10-4-2011

You are made out of self-renewing cells. When the DNA in the new cells is identical to the originals, you stay well and age little or not at all.

Recently it was found that each strand of DNA has shoe lace cap like sections at the ends that help keep the critical DNA in the middle able to make perfect copies. These are called telomeres.

When they are long enough, you stay well and hardly age at all. When they get shorter you get more diseases and age faster. That’s because you begin to be made out of partially defective cells!)

So, to prevent many diseases and slow aging, it clearly is worth it to find out what makes your telomeres shorter or longer.

Keeping your telomeres long helps avoid heart disease, cognitive decline, depression, cataracts, and type 2 diabetes.

1. Perhaps the best stress reliever known is doing Tai Chi daily. It also acts as a mild whole body exercise and burns as many calories while you do it as walking. Of the actions you can take, this one is extremely valuable. One study I read of said doing this increases the length of your telomeres by 43%.

Thanks to the email I get from Dr Al Sears, here is a list of other things you can do. Many of them take less time to do than Tai Chi and all of them are relatively easy to do.

(Dr Al Sears also sells an expensive supplement that causes your body to release telomerase which directly lengthens telomeres.

But if you aren’t unusually well to do, you can still do all these other things which are almost that effective if you do all of them.)

Here are the other things he recommends. (I’ve added a bit to his info as well.)

2. Prevent gum disease. Gum disease shortens your telomeres and directly causes heart disease.

This takes just a few minutes each day and part of it your dental hygienist can show you how to do if you haven’t yet learned it.

At least once every single day, floss in between your teeth and along their edges on both sides of the gap in between your teeth.

Then at least once every single day, brush your teeth in a way that mostly brushes your gums where your teeth come out of them and then brush your gums directly.

Then if you possibly can, get your teeth cleaned every 6 months.

(This also helps minimize bad breath. And it will help you keep your teeth and avoid the cost of having them pulled or replaced with false teeth as well.)

3. Get vigorous exercise most days of every week.

Based on the results from multiple studies, this directly lengthens your telomeres. You age much more slowly and get far fewer diseases!

4. Avoid or reverse obesity.

The exercise just mentioned helps enormously to do just that.

But the second part is to minimize sweet treats and even more important to virtually eliminate fattening foods and drinks including all soft drinks, virtually all foods made of refined grains or high fructose corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners, or which have hydrogenated oils or oils high in omega 6 added to them.

This includes French fries, potato chips, any bread not made of 100 % whole grains, all packaged desserts, virtually all commercially baked goods, and all packaged snacks.

Eat a diet high in real foods such as health OK protein foods and extra virgin olive oil and lots of nonstarchy vegetables, particularly the cruciferous ones, and some fresh fruit.

Watching far less TV than most people helps with both parts. You then have time to exercise. And you avoid watching the ads for the things that will make you fat that run on TV.

Eating processed meats that include nitrites and eating meats from animals fed grain, particularly their fat, shortens telomeres.

Eat plant protein foods like raw nuts if you aren’t allergic, and beans and lentils and animal protein foods from naturally fed animals such as 100 % grass fed beef, pasture fed poultry, and wild caught fish to avoid this.

5. Do things that increase your HDL cholesterol. People with high HDL have longer telomeres. They also are known to have less heart disease and live longer!

Take some niacin daily. Even taking 250 to 300 mg once a day after a meal will help. Taking twice that is more effective by doing it after two meals a day. Research has found people live longer who do this; and it is strongly heart protective. Your HDL goes up and your more harmful LDL & triglycerides go down. (Taking more than 1,000 mg a day of niacin is possible but can cause liver problems. So if you want to do that, you need to work with your doctor.)

I’ve found that doing all these HDL boosting things and taking about 1,000 mg a day of niacin keeps my HDL in the very high 89 to 96 range.

Get extra choline in food once a day. The yolk in whole eggs is high in choline. And, if you can eat wheat, wheat germ is quite high in choline.

Eating garlic or taking deodorized garlic may not lower total cholesterol but doing this and/or eating onions does boost HDL.

Get vigorous exercise most days of every week. The longer you have done this, the better the effect is on boosting your HDL because every year you exercise this way the higher your HDL gets!

Drink moderately. Red wine has other heart benefits. But the key thing is to avoid heavy drinking which can cause other problems and even severe problems. This too will increase HDL. And the moderate stress relief you get may help keep your telomeres long directly also.

6. Totally avoid tobacco smoke. It not only produces cardiovascular disease in everyone exposed to it, it causes 30% of all cancers. But that’s not all. Tobacco smoke also speeds aging and shortens your telomeres!

7. As I write this the FDA has proposed making most supplements unavailable.

If that happens, you may be deprived of doing this next step.

But for now and later if the FDA is talked out of doing that or prevented from doing that, you can do two more things.

Take 500 mg of vitamin C a few times each day. This has been shown to keep your telomeres long.

How high your homocysteine reading is varies with how long or short your telomeres are. Since tobacco smoke speeds aging and shortens your telomeres, it’s no surprise that it causes your homocysteine reading to go up.

For existing and severe heart disease, taking the supplements that lower homocysteine has failed to reverse it. But the jury is still out on preventing heart disease before the damage is done. And there are studies that show taking these supplements to lower homocysteine before the damage is done, do make cognitive decline less likely.

Taking 500 to 1,000 mcg a day of vitamin B12 sublingually so your absorption of it is direct is the best way since it works even if you take reflux drugs or don’t digest your food well.

This helps prevent mental decline directly in addition to lowering your homocysteine.

The other supplements that lower homocysteine include, 800 mcg a day of folic acid, 25 to 75 mg a day total of vitamin B6 (but NOT 100 mg a day or more), and a two to 25 mg a day of vitamin B2, riboflavin.

500 to 1,000 mg a day of N-acetyl cysteine, NAC and 500 to 750 mg a day of tri-methyl glycine, TMG also lower homocysteine. And the NAC has been shown to be directly protective to your brain besides.